The Dock is one of the many features of OS X that is taken for granted -- and often underutilized. Sure, a fair number of users eventually figure out that the can take things off the dock -- usually by accident, resulting in some considerable alarm -- but it has come to our attention that shockingly few users really leverage the Dock as Apple intended. In this installment of
Pointers, we'll go over some of the "hidden" powers of the Dock that turn it into a real productivity tool.
Far too many users work with the Dock exactly as it came from Apple, but this is in fact not how Apple intended users to work with it. Alternatively, more advanced users tend to abuse the Dock by trying to cram too many icons into the Dock until one requires a microscope or muscle memory to figure out where everything is. This also is not the intended use. However, the key thing to know about the Dock is that it is customizable and should be customized.
The "classic" Dock style (top) and Yosemite style (bottom)
Making the Dock your own
So, as many users have discovered, icons on the Dock can be removed by simply pulling them up off the Dock a sufficient distance, and (depending on your OS X version) they will either disappear in a puff of smoke, or will just make a "whoosh" noise. What most users don't understand is that his actually does nothing -- the application represented by the Dock shortcut is still safe and sound and still residing in the Applications folder as it always was.
The connection not enough users make is that the reverse is also true: you can
add items to the Dock by dragging a program from the Application folder to the Dock, where the other icons will nicely move aside to make room for the new addition. Just as before, the program doesn't actually leave the Application folder. The bottom line here is that more users should do what Apple intended: remove the icons of the programs you don't or are not planning to use, and replace those spots with your core, day-to-day go-to programs (but don't go nuts -- try to limit yourself to your top 12 or so).
Better-known but still little-used are the further customizations of the Dock's display that are available from System Preferences: things like the ability to position the Dock on the left or right side of the display rather than the default bottom. It's been our experience that OS X is designed to accommodate the presence of the Dock at the bottom of the screen, and so -- though we have experimented as one does in one's college years -- we returned to the tried and true default position. In OS X 10.10 Yosemite, we also enjoy the "Dark Mode" option for the Dock and menubar -- but the default lighter version looks better with certain backgrounds, so we change it sometimes in System Preferences.
A typical user-customized Dock
For those who enjoy maximum screen presence, however, the Dock can also be hidden with a simple option-command-d, whereupon the Dock will only pop up when the mouse nears the bottom (or left, or right, depending where you located your Dock) or when option-command-d is again invoked. We used to occasionally hide the Dock for various reasons, but then Apple invented Full-Screen Mode and that takes care of the matter automatically on an app-by-app basis. There's also the option to "magnify" the icons as the mouse passes over them, and to control the degree of magnification, all the way to the point we like to call "half-blind grandpa" size.
Now add folders
There's a reason why we suggest you limit yourself to the top dozen or so apps in the Dock, and that's because there is a whole area of the Dock that most users are completely unaware of and will want to use as well. Hard to see with the naked eye, particularly in later versions of the Dock, is a thin dividing line. This line serves two functions: it is a way to dynamically resize the Dock if you grab it with the mouse and move up or down, and to the right of the line is an area where you can put folders. By default, Apple usually puts the Downloads folder there; you can tell by its distinctive folder icon. This is the default location for Safari downloads, unless you've changed it to download elsewhere.
Clicking on the Downloads folder in the Dock reveals the contents of that folder, usually in what Apple calls a "fan" arrangement as there are generally few items there. Right-clicking on a folder icon in the Dock reveals a lot of options for how the folder's contents are displayed: our favorite is "automatic," which chooses from the three styles based on the number of items in the folder ("Fan" for a few; "Grid" for many; "List" for a whole lot). There are other options there as well, but we'll come back to them.
A "fan" style presentation
What's important to learn here are two key concepts: that you can add folders to the Dock just as you can add programs, giving you one-click access to the contents of that folder; and that right-clicking things in the Dock reveals extra features. Try right-clicking on one of the programs in the Dock, and you'll see some options; right-click on the icon of a program that is open at the moment, and you'll see some more options, including one to keep that icon permanently in the Dock (an alternate way of adding programs to the Dock). Try opening iTunes and playing some music, then hiding the program. Now right-click on the iTunes icon on the Dock, and you'll see contextual options to control iTunes without having to make it visible or switch back to it.
So let's say you want to add a folder of a manuscript you are presently working on to the Dock so that it is always right there. It will still be stored in Documents as it was originally (or should have been -- don't keep folders on the desktop, particularly when this Dock method is so much more functional), but you can just drag it onto the left side of the Dock (taking care not to accidentally add it to the Trash) and it is now always just a click away.
It's nice to have options
When you first add the folder to the dock, what usually happens is that "first" document in the folder becomes the icon, with what appears to be other items behind it. This is what Apple calls a "stack," and we don't know anyone who likes it. Right-clicking and changing the option to "folder" fixes that, and if you have previous altered your folder with a custom icon, that icon is retained in the Dock shortcut as well. You can also set useful options such as the style of presentation, and how you want to the list of files in the folder sorted when clicked on in the Dock.
Right-clicking on a folder presents options
For a manuscript folder, for example, you might want to sort the list alphabetically (Chapter 01, Chapter 02) or you might opt to sort it by "Date Modified," putting the most recently worked-on file at the top of the list. Other options include "Kind" (useful for sorting media types in a folder), "Date Added" and "Date Created."
Sometimes, of course, you prefer to open the folder in the Finder, and there's an option to do so right from the contextual (right-click) menu. You can also do so from within the list of files; the last item in a list or grid of files (or first item in the Fan view) in a Dock folder is "Open With Finder." Another tip: in the Grid or Fan view, you can drag an unwanted file to the Trash directly.
Right-clicking on the Trash icon in the Dock gives you the option to either empty the Trash, or to open it to see what's there (one last "sanity check" before you throw away potentially important files). Holding down the command key while right-clicking on the trash offers the option of "Secure Empty Trash," which makes a thrown-away file utterly and completely unretrievable.
We strongly do
not recommend using this option unless you are certain that every item in the Trash is of such a sensitive nature that extra security is needed, both because once that option is invoked you will
never be able to retrieve that file if you've made an error, and because Secure Empty Trash takes
ages to complete compared to the instant default deletion.
An organizational and productivity booster
Having these options all working together can make your workday a breeze. One "trick" we've employed to us is to put the Applications folder and our Home folder into the Dock. This provides literally one-click access to every program and document we have, and gives us the luxury of being more selective about which programs make it to the valuable real estate on the left side of the Dock.
We've also taken to grouping some of our apps together in folders within the Applications folder, and then dragging those folders to the Dock. Sure, we still have access to all those programs through the Application folder shortcut in the Dock, but we have a
lot of apps, and it still takes time to scroll down through the list to a program like WriteRoom if it is sorted in alphabetical order (though you can also just type the first few letters to "jump" to it) . So we've grouped all our Adobe CC programs in a single folder, all our games in a single folder, all our writing tools (of which we have way too many) in a single folder and so on, and put those in the Dock as well. Since these are generally smaller groups of programs, they are faster to scroll through to hit the right one.
Likewise, we give a lot of slideshow presentations, and have a folder full of those sorted by last modified, so we always know which one of the similarly-named files is the write one to open for our next lecture -- it's always right at the top of the list. We sometimes have a folder of beta software we are testing to separate them away from our regular programs, and when a new beta arrives, we can quickly trash the old one right from our Dock folder. It also reminds us to test the programs in a variety of situations to properly evaluate it or look for issues.
Combined with other productivity aides like Spaces, Spotlight, menu bar icons, and (depending on the program and how immersed we want to get into it) Full Screen Mode, the Dock has more functionality than most users know, which can be leveraged to keep needed documents or favorite programs nearby for fast opening. Although it is still important to file documents and downloads where they should go, we can get to everything we might have ever created, or any program we own extremely quickly and with a minimal amount of time scrolling or opening sub-folders. No more digging around in the Finder for us -- nearly everything on our Mac is at our fingertips with the help of the Dock.
MacNN's Pointers
column runs every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.